AA, AAA Battery Charger - Recommendation?

I've recently FUBAR'd a few AA batteries which I discovered only when trying to use my flashgun. From reading various forum posts, I now realise that the cheap and cheerful charger I have is not doing my AA + AAA NiMH batteries any good. I don't pretend to understand the technical explanations I've read but the batteries do get a wee bit warm when charging which is apparently 'not a good thing'.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a battery charger available in the UK, please? My requirements are
- AA + AAA only,
- can deal with odd numbers of batteries (so many of our gadgets and toys take 1 or 3 AAAs),
- preferably can also handle 18650 though that's not a deal breaker.

Re: AA, AAA Battery Charger - Recommendation?

Pretty sure I have a 'Lloytron' one from 7day Shop but will have to check when I get home.
It has a discharge function and a display status for each battery (allowing odd numbers or mixed types) to be charged.
Bonus is, it comes with a car power lead too so you don't have to be near a main connection (recharge in the car)

Re: AA, AAA Battery Charger - Recommendation?

I have the fancy Powerex MH-c9000 that is very popular, but for the past several years, I have gotten less concerned about doing the perfect thing with my batteries. Now I mainly use a Fenix ARE-C2 for convenience. It does the lithium ion batteries too, side by side. No settings, no thinking, no problems, no cell failures. Some heat is not bad, they shouldn't burn you though. I haven't had any cells kicking around that I felt the need to dig out the Powerex and do any tests or cycling with it. I think the fenix was recently updated to a '+' model, not familiar what was updated.

Re: AA, AAA Battery Charger - Recommendation?

I've had good luck with a LaCross BC-700 It does the charge, condition, discharge, etc. I mostly just have used the charge function and it will charge 1-4 batteries in any increment and shows what is happening to each battery in separate displays. I bought it through Amazon when I bought some of their batteries. I would think it would be available for you on the other side of the pond also.

Re: AA, AAA Battery Charger - Recommendation?

Thanks for taking the time to reply and make recommendations, they are appreciated.

I thought this would be any easy purchase! What I did not appreciate was the complexity of the subject. There are some sites with serious and, to me, incomprehensible, reviews and statistics that prompt enthusiastic debate. The parts I understood, plus trawling through all the seemingly intelligent reviews I could find, yielded a winner.

Should arrive from Amazon tomorrow or Monday. I've accepted a couple of compromises: no discharge function and a low charge rate and therefore longer time for 3 or more batteries but I can live with those. However it ticks all the other boxes: it'll take Li-ion for the new LED torch, Ni-MH for the camera stuff plus size AA, AAA and, as a bonus, C too. It looks to be a complete doddle to use and it gets generally good reviews from nerds and real people.

That it's packaging bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Nikon's did not influence my decision one jot.

Re: AA, AAA Battery Charger - Recommendation?

The Nitecore looks like a good charger. The flashlight (torch) guys know their batteries and chargers and demand the best. I'd be curious when you get it about how much space is between the cells. My old LaCrosse was very compact and nearly impossible to grab a finished cell out of the middle without removing #1 or #4 first. My Powerex and Fenix are bigger and I can easily fit my fat fingers in there to remove any cell first. Not a big deal except the rare times when I have I have a pile of batteries to charge and want to move them along as soon as they are done.
You won't miss the discharge function especially if you use eneloops. Back when I used Energizer nimh, they were nothing but trouble and I would need to condition them. Then eneloops came out and I cannot kill them.

Re: AA, AAA Battery Charger - Recommendation?

Same here. I have multiple flash guns and it takes forever to charge my batteries with the ancient 4-slot, no display chargers I have. So I order this Watson 8-slot unit. Thanks to OP and all who replied to make me upgrade.

Re: AA, AAA Battery Charger - Recommendation?

Originally Posted by singlerosa

Same here. I have multiple flash guns and it takes forever to charge my batteries with the ancient 4-slot, no display chargers I have. So I order this Watson 8-slot unit. Thanks to OP and all who replied to make me upgrade.

This is the same charger I use for 90% of my needs. I also have a Powerex model, but have not worked it into my flow yet.